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Shutdown Responsibility in Three Paragraphs
There’s been a lot of comparison charts going around since the shutdown. In case you missed it, MPR released a June 30th video on how to understand the state budget mess in 3 minutes.
It does a great job illustrating the budget differences between Governor Dayton and the state legislature. While the main divide centers around health and human services. Conservatives are proposing a vision for Minnesota that strips much of what made our state strong.
In the spirit of MPR’s 3 minute theme, I’m taking a crack at showing you—in 3 paragraphs—how we wound up in this mess.
1. Conservatives’ Unicorn offers. As we neared a shutdown, conservative lawmakers decided sending unrealistic offers to the governor would be good for progress. On June 16th, conservatives offered a “big compromise.” They eliminated their tax cuts proposal, many of which went to middle-class Minnesotans and small business operators. Shifting this $200 million they thought would erase the $1.8 billion gap between them. On June 29th, 28 hours before the government shutdown, another proposal was introduced that asked the governor to accept a variety of non-budgetary agenda items, including a conservative redistricting proposal, voter identification laws, additional abortion regulations, and reducing collective bargaining rights.
2. Distractions and publicity stunts. Among the many things that could be placed in this category, a few truly stand out. A classic bill that would have eliminated eight state agencies, including the Department of Transportation, Department of Management and Budget, and the Department of Revenue. The “shoot first” bill attempted to radically change the landscape of our gun laws in Minnesota. Proposing and passing the voter I.D. bill which would have seriously impinged on voter rights. They also voted to put a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage on the ballot for 2012.
3. Millionaires, not Minnesotans. In the waning hours of budget negotiations, Governor Dayton backed off taxing the top 2 percent, opting to only tax Minnesota millionaires, roughly 7,700 people. Evidently, there was no room for negotiations of that kind, and that proposal was promptly rejected.
With all of the finger pointing, remember these three paragraphs. Credit should be given where credit is due. Conservatives’ hard work produced this shutdown. The governor has made seven reasonable and balanced offers to solve our budget deficit. Conservatives have offered gimmicks and “no-new-tax” ideology, but no compromise, to protect the state’s wealthiest.
Posted in Fiscal Policy | Related Topics: State Budget Government Shutdown Governor Dayton
14 Comments
July 15, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Bernice, you’ve got it right. Everyone should take a look at that website. ALEC stands for? The American Legislative Exchange Council and it is behind nearly all of the controversial right wing legislation. Why is that such a big deal? Because what it really proves is that there hasn’t been a clamor from the average citizen for this. It’s all “top down” tactics, being pushed, bought and paid for by wealthy and powerful forces, those with highly selfish goals that end up being an anti-everyday-citizen agenda.
That this has gone on this long does not necessarily speak highly of the overall vigilance of the press (the 4th Estate) and all of us citizens, does it?
It does certainly show, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the average citizen hasn’t been asking for this divisive stuff, indeed it’s being pushed ONTO them, with the pretense that there’s wide appeal. Complete hogwash.
America is a great land, built by “can do” people, citizens who knew that they.. in their own lives… would have to stand up for something to make our (relatively) new system of democracy work for all of us.
This exactly what Franklin meant when he said to that question about “What have you given us?” after his signing… and his answer: “A Republic, if you can hold on to it” is instructional.
Looking in the mirror, can you really say “yes, I am?”
America has to be renewed with every generation, or it wouldn’t be “we the people.” That is who we really are, and who we are called to be.
What do you say?
July 15, 2011 at 10:34 am
I think Governor Dayton fought the Immovable Wall that ideology and ignorance built between good government and the current right-wing legislature as long as possible. And perhaps a lot longer than many others might have. His heart and mind remain with those in need, with fair treatment of all Minnesotans and for the return to health of our state.
What we need to do now is to make sure that the makeup of the legislature changes 100% after the November 2012 election.
I urge everyone to visit the website www.alecexposed.org to see why so much virtually identical (and disastrous)legislation is getting passed in state after state—by right-wing devotees of the Koch Brothers, Grover Norquist and the national Chamber of Commerce.
ALEC has written over 800 laws for the like-minded legislators who make up its membership to introduce—and we have a bunch in our very own legislature that has taken part and is pushing every one it can! (Voter i.d., “protection” of marriage, privately-run charters, etc.)
See also the website of the Center for Media and Democracy, which conducted an investigation of ALEC that they are now presenting to us citizens at their site and the alec exposed one.
July 15, 2011 at 8:04 am
I am appalled. Our Governor excepts the Republican budget, minus the non-budget items that had been inappropriately put in there. And? It’s more of what our last Republican governor did: accounting tricks. We give schools $700 million in IOU’s (to go with the big stack of those we’ve already give them) and we issue bonds against the tobacco settlement funds for another $700 million. That is how the $1.4 billion dollar budget gap gets “covered.”
Is this a “balanced budget,” as required by state law, by your standards?
The pain of the shutdown was growing, and certainly that must be a consideration. Governor Dayton did say “I’m going to agree to something that I don’t agree with,” but how much has been accomplished with weeks of disruption having already occurred?
Put me on record, right now, that when the next budget comes up, in two years, that it will be even more difficult as we carry these “deferred” costs forward. Looking at how things have gone, well, isn’t it: do what you always did, get what you always got…
We’re better than this, aren’t we?
July 14, 2011 at 6:05 pm
The only reason the Republicans can say “six” is enough is the fact that they are padding it with raids on designated funds like the IRRRB and by backfilling the General Fund with tax money designated by MN voters to be used ONLY for the environment.
July 14, 2011 at 12:40 pm
As landlords with a lot of property to tax,we have always voted to add more money to the school budget via special assessments. We think the schools in St. Paul are our best investment in civic health. Still, we cannot ignore the fact that we have added a lot of money, but the minority dropout rate hasn’t improved much.
July 14, 2011 at 12:11 pm
I remember when Time magazine covered Minnesota as “the state that works.”
We had a prosperous, progressive state.
What does former Governor Carlson say about our current shutdown? I’ll try to quote it as closely as possible:
“Whatever you think of their performance, the new legislature and governor have only been in office about six months, they haven’t had time to do this.”
He’s not mincing words about how this mess got created. Anybody want to argue with the analysis of our former Republican Governor Carlson?
Need more? When ratings agency Fitch recently downgraded Minnesota’s bonds, they didn’t only cite the current shutdown, they also specifically mentioned the previous unsustainable accounting methods that had been used by the Pawlenty administration.
So Fitch is agreeing with Governor Carlson, too. Anybody have more facts and credibility than that?
If you read the NYTimes today they have a major story on our budget mess, and how it’s really been made far more difficult by the actions of our previous governor.
Since Pawlenty is promising to do for the whole country what he did for us, they’re checking into How It’s Gone Here.
I encourage every one to read it, as it chronicles the accounting shenanigans that were used to give the pretense of a balanced budget.
In a previous post I laid some of that out, and the billions involved, and that most of us were around when this happened. We all hoped it would work out… and here we are. It didn’t.
The lesson? Not standing up for the Common Good hasn’t gone well… and having citizens turn a blind eye to budgeting tricks en masse…well now the aftermath of all that irresponsibility is engulfing us. That is what has happened to our great state. If we want different results? We’ll all have to take more responsibility, not just for ourselves, but that system function well for other citizens too. We are the “we” in that declaration: “We the People.”
July 14, 2011 at 11:38 am
The same clergy who covered for the pedophiles, along with the same ministers who are often outed…(think Rev. Haggard); they are the people who have supported the tools who want to protect us all from taxation and they are doing just fine at protecting the richest from paying more.
A “fair share” is what it takes to run a humane system/government that does not spend it’s riches on war and domination of the planet.
Cuts to education will bring about the ignorance needed to drive this country over the cliff. We will not solve these problems until we recognize that they are not problems for the right wing ideologues…Rev. Haggard has a new church and the Vatican still provides a great retiremernt package.
(Leave a writen record for your grandkids so that they know how we got to the chaos that they will find more than just challenging!)
God Bless America!
July 14, 2011 at 11:20 am
I used to be an optimist. I grew up believing in the “good governance” of Minnesota. I lived in Chicago for 7 years (working for the Police Dept. no less) and was always a little smug about the comparison between Chicago and Minnesota.
I believed in progress. I thought we understood about fairness. When the Supreme Court ruled on abortion, I thought, Women would never go back. I believed in the social contract and that Americans believed that we are all in this together. I could look back on what this country had accomplished during the Great Depression and through World War II, pulling together to win the war. I thought the John Birch society was a short-lived nutty fringe group.
But in the last 30+ years, I have been gradually waking up to the reality of the radical right’s encroachment on all of this, fairness, good governance, and instead, advancing the concept that individuals alone are responsible for their wealth, and that greed is good, and that criminal activity is OK, just don’t get caught. Almost every day I read new revelations about the mortgage frauds and those banks and financial institutions who were the real perpetrators in bringing down our economy—perpetrators who not only are not serving jail time, but in some cases are running our economy.
All this to precede my (optimistic) beliefs that the radical right has gone too far and that ordinary working people are waking up. I’m happy that Wisconsites were able to distinguish between fake and real Democrats. Several local elections where Democrats have been elected cheer me as signs that Americans are no longer being taken in by the voodoo politics of the radical right, the provable facts on who and what are the real “job killers,” the fairness, compassion, and in fact the general wisdom of helping others (the Wellstone mantra, We all do better when we all do better).
July 14, 2011 at 11:05 am
Mike,
Last fall MN voters provided TWO mandates. The mandate provided to republican legislators was to cut wasteful spending. The mandate to the governor was to “raise taxes on the rich”. These two mandates are not mutually exclusive but the republican legislators negotiating with Gov. Dayton acted as if they were. In fact they semed to act as if there was only ONE mandate..theirs.
Gov. Dayton was VERY CLEAR from the time he began to run for the position that he would only accept a revenue shortfall solution that inculded TAXING the RICH. In the end he was willing to define “the rich” as those making nearly $20,000 a WEEK. He met his legislative counterparts at more than halfway…and they essentially refused to negotiate. Perhaps they thought that (as has been the case in the past) the most reasonable party int he negotiations would “cave in” for the good of the state. What they failed to realize was that it was in the best interest of the state to NOT implement a revenue shortfall solution that does not include actually creating more revenue.
Up until the last possible minute republican legislators “called Daytons bluff”..until they realized he was not bluffing. THEN they quickly (and clumisily) tried to shif responsibility for the shutdown to the Governor by asking him to call a special session so they could “kick the can down the road” so their poor decision making would be obfuscated.
It is as if they were driving toward a cliff with the acellerator mashed to the floor and as they sailed off the edge they blameed the Governor for not hitting the brakes. I don’t think the average MN voter is stupid enough to accept the “it’s his fault” fallback position now being spread by those who mistakenly thought he was bluffing.
But I guess we will see next election cycle if they are or not.
July 14, 2011 at 10:51 am
What would it take to prove Minnesota has a fraudulent voting problem. It doesn’t matter in this case whether the majority of people are in favor of voter ID. That is removing the voting rights of some citizens.
There is not a problem. The so called fix is going to cost money.
July 14, 2011 at 10:45 am
@Mike T.
As far as the left “proving” that requiring Voter ID will disenfranchise voters, what would be proof enough for you? Doesn’t it make sense that people without many resources such as the disabled, the poor, the infirm and elderly will find it difficult to acquire a voter ID? Anything that stands in the way of making the voting process accessible to everyone disenfranchises voters.
As to your question of how much is enough concerning taxes, that might be a good question for the property owner who is on a fixed income but finds his/her property taxes increasing each year as Minnesota state government continues to “treat” millionaires while passing along their responsibilities to local governments.
July 14, 2011 at 10:15 am
I see that from the commentary, Governor Dayton is cleared of responsibility in this mess: Considering the source, I’m not surprised. More conclusions based on opinion instead of facts.
“The “shoot first” bill attempted to radically change the landscape of our gun laws in Minnesota”: Wrong, it takes the rights of criminals and gives them back to property owners, and doesn’t require anyone to own a gun.
“Proposing and passing the voter I.D. bill which would have seriously impinged on voter rights.”: Voter ID is something the majority of Minnesotans are in favor of in every poll I have seen. The left still has yet to prove how voters will be hurt by this.
The House and Senate should have rolled out a budget proposal within the first couple of weeks of this session if you ask me, instead of concentrating on social issues. But, with the Governor’s desire to grow government, I doubt a deal would have been done on time; who knows.
How much money will be enough? If you continue to take and take from those that make more money, soon there will be fewer of those folks around, then what do you do? A 6% increase in state budget is more than enough.
July 14, 2011 at 9:22 am
Excellent summary.
The whole anti-tax/anti-worker/anti-government ideology is like a rampant asocial psychosis that has overwhelmed millions of so-called “conservative” Americans.
And some Brits. And some Canadians. And who knows how many others have been infected at least in part by the propaganda of the Kochs, Norquist, Karl Rove (who now advises Sweden’s leaders on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange) and word-man Frank Luntz.
It is very encouraging to see the successful recall efforts in Wisconsin as Democracy begins to return to that state.
Ginny says:
July 15, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Bernice and KJC
Thank you for bringing my attention to the ALEC phenomenon. I shouldn’t be surprised, especially after knowing about Dick Cheney’s getting his gas and oil friends to write energy bills.
It behooves all of us to know more about this group. I think one way to defeat their conservative goals is to learn more about what they’re doing it and how they’re doing it.